4 ms·

Robot Pizza Startup Shuts Down After Cheese Kept Sliding Off

41 points by shallowbay 3y ago

JoeAltmaier 3y ago
I'm surprised. We have had stabilizing technology for decades - ships at sea, camera lenses, microscopes, CNC mills and on and on. How can it be hard to stabilize an oven in a car? Even if there is some mechanical issue, why not bake the pizza on a 'bed of nails' so the cheese says put? It seems like there must be a dozen solutions available. Was cost prohibitive?
- SQueeeeeL 3y ago
  "A robot pizza delivery startup that raised almost half a billion dollars has shut down after a series of technological setbacks, according to The Information." The answer feels pretty obvious. This whole thing was a vaporware pump and dump scheme to rip off investors. No one needs 500 million dollars and 7 years to build a pizza robot; but that's a lot of years of salary and making PowerPoints. Legitimate productive cost effective engineering strategies for their core product probably left the discussion space after they raised their first million dollars of funding, and all the people actually capable of solving tasks left soon after the company was taken over by bozos
  - asfarley 3y ago
    Actually this company was run by bozos from the start, it never looked like it was going to work imo
  - VoodooJuJu 3y ago
    I've always wondered how this is done. Like, if I'm born lower class, but can see through all the bullshit, how the game is played, the investor pump and dump exit schemes, can I play the game? Or is entry to the game only possible via a special ticket, i.e. like an Ivy League degree? Are these milkers and exit strategists starting off well-connected already?
    - techdragon 3y ago
      The challenge is believing the bullshit. The less knowledgeable people with the money (investors) can only do so much research into how right or wrong a potential investment is… fundamentally if they were more knowledgeable than the people doing the business then they would have seen the opportunity and already have a decision about it… which creates paradoxical decision making, “if it was so obvious it would have been done before” leads to “they must be so smart for working this out” which leads to decisions that amount to “I trust them $X that they are worth $Y”. Once you have the money your kind of wedded to the idea… if it was weird or audacious you have a certain level of follow through necessary to “save face” and be believed next time you present an idea and promise it’s worth what you claim it might be, hence why a dumb idea like this pizza van, took years to finally die. The follow through on the idea requires believing in it… or at least convincing everyone giving you money that you believe. Because if you don’t believe it’s really able to make money, then your basically lying to them.
    - moi2388 3y ago
      Anybody can play, but you need to get a bunch or rich folk to give you money. How you do that is your choice.
teachrdan 3y ago
As an engineer in the bay area, I got a bunch of recruiter emails from these guys over the years. So did a few other folks in my position. Anyone else?
pvaldes 3y ago
Just cover the pizza with a second mass layer sealing the cheese in place
- Kon-Peki 3y ago
  But then you have a calzone startup, which most definitely isn't something SoftBank (or anyone who likes food) wants to scale up.
  - pvaldes 3y ago
    The CalzoneYcombinator startup rule: The time that your startup will last is inversely proportional to the complexity of your first product. Start with the minimum viable product that you can positively build and sell, and gain complexity only in successive iterations. It does not matter if your pizza can selfdrive into your mouth. Your startup will be death for years at this point.
pizzafeelsright 3y ago
How exactly did someone, anyone, not build or pivot when that much money was involved? How did someone not ask or say the required sequence of words to capitalize on the investment?
- contingencies 3y ago
  They did, a few years ago IIRC they announced they had pivoted to packaging IP (like pizza box folding). In January 2020, the company cut over half its employees and switched to compostable packaging, based on the know-how of a southern California company it had acquired, Pivot Packaging. Obviously that didn't work out. Heheh.
Canada 3y ago
Aren't all the frozen pizzas in the supermarket made by machines already?
- hgsgm 3y ago
  Not by machines in driving trucks
  - kilohotel 3y ago
    except Zume didn't make pizza's in trucks - they just heated them in trucks from a parbaked state, like digiorno
squarefoot 3y ago
If your cheese sprays like liquid, then you're using the wrong cheese, or probably something that shouldn't even qualify as such.
Saris 3y ago
They needed some of those stoves on gimbals that they use on ships.

41 points by shallowbay 3y ago

I'm surprised. We have had stabilizing technology for decades - ships at sea, camera lenses, microscopes, CNC mills and on and on. How can it be hard to stabilize an oven in a car? Even if there is some mechanical issue, why not bake the pizza on a 'bed of nails' so the cheese says put? It seems like there must be a dozen solutions available. Was cost prohibitive?

SQueeeeeL 3y ago
"A robot pizza delivery startup that raised almost half a billion dollars has shut down after a series of technological setbacks, according to The Information." The answer feels pretty obvious. This whole thing was a vaporware pump and dump scheme to rip off investors. No one needs 500 million dollars and 7 years to build a pizza robot; but that's a lot of years of salary and making PowerPoints. Legitimate productive cost effective engineering strategies for their core product probably left the discussion space after they raised their first million dollars of funding, and all the people actually capable of solving tasks left soon after the company was taken over by bozos
- asfarley 3y ago
  Actually this company was run by bozos from the start, it never looked like it was going to work imo
- VoodooJuJu 3y ago
  I've always wondered how this is done. Like, if I'm born lower class, but can see through all the bullshit, how the game is played, the investor pump and dump exit schemes, can I play the game? Or is entry to the game only possible via a special ticket, i.e. like an Ivy League degree? Are these milkers and exit strategists starting off well-connected already?
  - techdragon 3y ago
    The challenge is believing the bullshit. The less knowledgeable people with the money (investors) can only do so much research into how right or wrong a potential investment is… fundamentally if they were more knowledgeable than the people doing the business then they would have seen the opportunity and already have a decision about it… which creates paradoxical decision making, “if it was so obvious it would have been done before” leads to “they must be so smart for working this out” which leads to decisions that amount to “I trust them $X that they are worth $Y”. Once you have the money your kind of wedded to the idea… if it was weird or audacious you have a certain level of follow through necessary to “save face” and be believed next time you present an idea and promise it’s worth what you claim it might be, hence why a dumb idea like this pizza van, took years to finally die. The follow through on the idea requires believing in it… or at least convincing everyone giving you money that you believe. Because if you don’t believe it’s really able to make money, then your basically lying to them.
  - moi2388 3y ago
    Anybody can play, but you need to get a bunch or rich folk to give you money. How you do that is your choice.

teachrdan 3y ago

As an engineer in the bay area, I got a bunch of recruiter emails from these guys over the years. So did a few other folks in my position. Anyone else?

pvaldes 3y ago

Just cover the pizza with a second mass layer sealing the cheese in place

Kon-Peki 3y ago
But then you have a calzone startup, which most definitely isn't something SoftBank (or anyone who likes food) wants to scale up.
- pvaldes 3y ago
  The CalzoneYcombinator startup rule: The time that your startup will last is inversely proportional to the complexity of your first product. Start with the minimum viable product that you can positively build and sell, and gain complexity only in successive iterations. It does not matter if your pizza can selfdrive into your mouth. Your startup will be death for years at this point.

pizzafeelsright 3y ago

How exactly did someone, anyone, not build or pivot when that much money was involved? How did someone not ask or say the required sequence of words to capitalize on the investment?

contingencies 3y ago
They did, a few years ago IIRC they announced they had pivoted to packaging IP (like pizza box folding). In January 2020, the company cut over half its employees and switched to compostable packaging, based on the know-how of a southern California company it had acquired, Pivot Packaging. Obviously that didn't work out. Heheh.

Canada 3y ago

Aren't all the frozen pizzas in the supermarket made by machines already?

hgsgm 3y ago
Not by machines in driving trucks
- kilohotel 3y ago
  except Zume didn't make pizza's in trucks - they just heated them in trucks from a parbaked state, like digiorno

squarefoot 3y ago

If your cheese sprays like liquid, then you're using the wrong cheese, or probably something that shouldn't even qualify as such.

Saris 3y ago

They needed some of those stoves on gimbals that they use on ships.